Aldhelm's prose style and its origins

1977 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 39-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Winterbottom
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Great Book ◽  
The Other ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Prose Style ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The One ◽  
Literary Origins ◽  
The Middle Ages

Eduard Norden's great bookDie antike Kunstprosais grounded on first-hand acquaintance with an astonishingly wide range of literature, both from classical antiquity and from the Middle Ages. But at the authors of Anglo-Saxon England Norden does seem to have drawn the line. ‘The two great writers, Aldhelm and Bede’, he says, ‘write, like all Anglo-Saxons, a stylistically uncultivated (verwildertes) though grammatically correct Latin.’ There is no need to labour the point that Aldhelm and Bede are not to be mentioned thus cavalierly in the same stylistic breath: we are all familiar today with the distinction between the ‘hermeneutic’ Latin of the one and the ‘classical’ Latin of the other. But at least Norden could not fall victim to another widely accepted doctrine that purports to explain the origin of that distinction: the doctrine that Aldhelm's style was influenced by Ireland, Bede's by the continent of Europe. I doubt if this is true even of Bede. But my present business is with Aldhelm; I shall try to show that his literary origins are not to be found in Ireland. At the same time I shall be challenging Norden's claim that his Latin was uncultivated. I shall suggest, indeed, that its cultivation was of a kind that Norden himself would have been uniquely qualified to analyse.

scholarly journals Culture forming characteristics of the Middle ages: Britain vs Russia

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 96-108
Author(s):  
Ekaterina V. Sklizkova
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Forming Characteristics ◽  
Sociocultural Characteristics ◽  
The One ◽  
The Middle Ages

Any historico-cultural type creates its own model of the world which is formed by universal for the society ideas and thoughts. The Middle ages are one of the most complicated, very many-sided and contradictory epochs. It was built by several large and active strata. Such subdivision was manifested in mosaicism of cultural heritage, where different phenomena can be viewed as a pattern of separate culture, though coherent in sociocultural characteristics. The dualism of the epoch reflects on the one hand in cultural globalism for whole Europe, one the other hand in variations within. Aesthetic views were mostly manifested at court, accumulated and shown as a signs. Aristocracy partly artificially synthesized its culture, shaping in the most attractive form. It was structuralized in common European context, having absorbed local cultures, primary so called Anglo-Saxon. Though any 3–5 centuries the territory of the British Isles was being marched through by a new wave of invaders, changed the culture. So it is possible to examine the unique cultures of these peoples and their impact to British one. Although the history of Russia exists in another context, it is the history of not consequent main cultures but the history of one nation. Certainly, as the multiethnic state Russia includes many cultures of many peoples but the central and cementing one, made the country as it stands, is Russian.

Aristotle's Unmoved Movers

Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Merlan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Picture ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Concentric Spheres ◽  
The One ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Middle Ages

According to Aristotle all heavenly movement is ultimately due to the activity of forty-seven (or fifty-five) ‘unmoved movers'. This doctrine is highly remarkable in itself and has exercised an enormous historical influence. It forms part of a world-picture the outlines of which are as follows. The universe consists of concentric spheres, revolving in circles. The outermost of these bears the fixed stars. The other either bear planets or, insofar as they do not, contribute indirectly to the movements of the latter. Each sphere is moved by the one immediately surrounding it, but also possesses a movement of its own, due to its mover, an unmoved, incorporeal being. (It was these beings which the schoolmen designated as theintelligentiae separatae.) The seemingly irregular movements of the planets are thus viewed as resulting from the combination of regular circular revolutions. The earth does not move and occupies the centre of the universe. Such was Aristotle's astronomic system, essential parts of which were almost universally adopted by the Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages.

The Relation of the Slave and the Client to the Master or Patron in Medieval Islam

1971 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul G. Forand
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The One ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

In antiquity and in the Middle Ages slavery played a significant role in the military, economic, political and social life of the Near East. Many studies have been made of these aspects of life, but little has been said in the context of Islam about the psychological bonds which, at least to some extent, characterize the relationship between slave or freedman and master. The institution of ‘mutual alliance’ also played an important part in Islamic history, and there were certain similarities between the relation of the ‘ally’ to the patron on the one hand, and of the freedman to the former master on the other. But it is the purpose of this discussion, in part, to point out some basic differences between the two relationships.

Saint and Monster, Saint as Monster: Exemplary Encounters with the Other

2011 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 125-135
Author(s):  
Samantha Riches
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
The Other ◽  
Excellent Opportunity ◽  
Physical Form ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Middle Ages

The concept of the monstrous is tremendously powerful as a cultural signifier of Otherness, not least when it is embodied into a physical form such as a dragon or other fantastical and threatening creature which can be clearly contrasted with a human hero. A wide range of saints’ narratives — written and visual — which emanate from the Middle Ages include an encounter with a monster; the motif offers an excellent opportunity to present the saintly figure with a foil, not only in simple terms of good human versus evil beast, but also by demonstrating the contrast between the civilized nature of a form of perfected humanity and the untamed wilderness which is the natural habitat of monsters.

Anglicanism on the Eve of the Oxford Movement

1934 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
John T. McNeill
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
The One ◽  
Governing Institutions ◽  
Pro Forma ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

1. The Erastian Bondage of the Church:The promise of Magna Charta “that the English Church shall be free and have her rights entire and her liberties inviolate,” went largely unfulfilled. The autonomy of the Church was dreamt of by men like Stephen Langton and Robert Grosseteste, but it was never realized. In the Middle Ages it was restricted by the assertion of the jurisdiction of the Pope on the one hand, and of the King on the other. Magna Charta marked the humiliation of the King and met with the prompt condemnation of the Pope. By a long series of events between ca. 1350 and ca. 1570, the Pope's cause in England was lost, and in the same course of events the royal power was greatly enhanced. So far as constitutional autonomy was concerned the Church was now in a weaker state than before. The gates of a prison-house of Erastianism closed about her. A blight fell upon her governing institutions. Her Convocations were not permitted to function, and after 1718 were discontinued, except for pro forma meetings held for the purpose, as Edmund Burke phrased it, “of making some polite ecclesiastical compliments to the King.” Burke spoke for the politicians of his century when he added: “It is wise to permit its legal existence only.” Because Convocation's last acts had been attended by strife, the fear that its revival would mean a renewal of unseemly contention was habitually invoked as an answer to the few who ventured to suggest that step.

Medieval Latin Commentaries on Classical Myth

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
Classical Myth ◽  
Classical Mythology ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Classical Myths ◽  
The Middle Ages

As the abundance of extant medieval commentaries attests, classical mythology presented several conundrums for medieval audiences. The historical distance between the writers of classical myths and their medieval readers prompted numerous scholars to reframe and even rewrite their sources to ameliorate challenges ranging from complicated classical Latin syntax to theological conflicts between pagan polytheism and Christian monotheism. Despite its polytheism, classical mythology became a source for manifold medieval erudition, beginning with the grammatical studies that introduced students to Latin literacy. Scholars and writers since the beginning of the Christian Middle Ages turned to these myths to gain mastery over Latin, history, natural science, and even ethics. To study these subjects, medieval scholars produced collections of scholastic notes, or commentaries, primarily in Latin. The medieval commentary tradition began in classical antiquity itself. Soon after Virgil wrote his Aeneid, scholars started developing commentaries that prompted audiences both to study and to imitate his works. The Middle Ages inherited some of these commentaries, such as the influential commentaries by Servius on Virgil, which then influenced commentaries on other classical writers of myths, such as Ovid and Statius. The modern study of these diverse medieval materials has recently benefited from the increased availability of digital manuscripts, critical editions, and a few translations, all of which have facilitated more cross-commentary analyses than used to be possible. However, the wide range of interpretive approaches and formats as well as the irregularities of medieval scholastic transmission mean that much more work remains to be done on how medieval audiences accessed classical mythology. This article combines older foundational studies with more recent contributions to represent how modern criticism, like the commentaries it studies, takes many forms.

King Arthur and the Tudor Dynasty

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Philip Schwyzer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Faerie Queene ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Arthurian Literature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Middle Ages

The reception of the legend of Arthur in the Tudor era presents something of a paradox. On the one hand, Arthur featured prominently in pageants and public spectacles throughout the period, and at times played a surprisingly important role in foreign policy. On the other hand, chroniclers found it increasingly difficult to defend Arthur’s historicity, and the period failed to produce a major work of Arthurian literature beyond Spenser’s Faerie Queene, in which the British prince cuts a perplexingly elusive figure. With its complex and conflicting attitudes to the Arthurian tradition, the Tudor era seems to constitute a bridge or way-station between the Arthur of the Middle Ages and the Arthur of more securely post-medieval (and, hence, medievalist) eras.

The Humanisation of Nature in the Middle Ages

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Barros
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
The One ◽  
The Middle Ages

This essay argues that unlike the ideology of economic production and accumulation, which is the driving force of modern secular society and which establishes adversarial relations between man and nature, medievel society was guided by the ideology of reli gion, where nature was perceived as the manifestation of God; hence violence against nature was tantamount to violence against God. This created an ambience of both tension and harmony between man and nature, an equilibrium that, on the one hand, humanised nature, and on the other, prevented man from plundering it.

The Ideology of Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval Religious Frontier

1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 442-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles J. Halperin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Great Frequency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Intolerance ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Determining Factor ◽  
The Middle Ages

Historians have long debated the importance of religion as a determining factor in relations between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages. On the one hand, each side consigned adherents of the enemy's religion to eternal damnation. Religious animosity provided the casus belli of crusade and jihad; Christian and Muslim met each other on the field of battle with great frequency. On the other hand, Christian-Muslim relations also included peaceful commerce, institutional borrowing, and even cultural exchange. Christians and Muslims spent more time fighting their coreligionists than making war on each other. Churches continued to exist in the lands of Islam, and mosques survived under Christian rule as well. Such evidence has led some historians to minimize the degree to which religious intolerance influenced Christian-Muslim contacts during the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Influence of the Meanings of the Greek Сoncept of “'Aret'h” on the Meanings of the Latin Concept of “Virtus” as One of the Reasons for the Polysemanticity of the Concept of “Virtual” in the XX–XXI centuries

2019 ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Nadezhda Zudilina
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
English Word ◽  
The Other ◽  
The One ◽  
The Middle Ages

The author considers how the influence of the meanings of the Greek concept “'aret'h” on the semantics of the Latin concept “virtus” could cause the concept of “virtual” acquire such meanings as “being something in essence, real” (and not formally); “actual, real”. One of the Greek words translated into Latin as “virtus” in antiquity and the Middle Ages, was the word “'aret'h”. As a result of such a translation, the meanings of the word “'aret'h” and the philosophical (first of all, Platonic) meanings of the concept of “'aret'h” enriched the meanings of the concept “virtus”. It is most likely that the first meaning of the concept of “virtual”, that is, “being something in essence, really” (and not formally), comes from the meaning “in essence” of the English word “virtually”, connected with one of the aspects of Plato’s interpretations of “'aret'h” – 'aret'h as the essence of a thing (Greek “oysia”, Latin “essentia”). Probably, the concept “virtual” acquired the meaning of “ factual, real “ through the the mediation of the word “virtually” (in its meaning “in fact, factually”), from the word “actually”, which, on the one hand, means “ in fact, indeed, really”, and on the other, is used as a synonym for “virtually”. It is possible that the accurrence of meanings “factual, real” of the concept “virtual” has been reinforced by the connection of the word “virtus” and its derivatives with the above mentioned “Platonic” meaning of the concept of “virtual”, that is the meaning “being something in essence”, which is in some respects close to the meaning “factual, real”.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document